8/2/07

Hey there to all you funky monkeys and secret squirrels

Well, we are currently in Accra, the capital city of Ghana in Western Africa and although we would really like to write some nice things about Ghana, we can’t… because this place REALLY STINKS!!!

Man… before we got here, people warned us that Ghana smells like a toilet, but we thought that they were just joking…

But yesterday we realised that they LITERALLY use their country as a toilet, when we walked over a foot bridge in a wealthier area of Accra and were hit by an even smellier smell than usual… and then almost gagged when we saw a heap of locals just taking a dump into an open sewer just off the road next to a food market.

Now I guess when you are in a poor country, you should get used to the sights and smells of human excrement everywhere, but I DEFINITELY still got a little bit of vomit come up in my mouth when I also watched a guy just taking a big dump into the surf on a swimming beach where kids were playing! Bleeeaaaargh!!!

And even though it has been a similar situation with open sewers and rubbish everywhere in Mali and Burkina Faso, those countries actually don’t stink anywhere as much as Ghana, since Ghana is SO hot and HUMID that the stench is like a permanently warm fart cloud that is actually INESCAPABLE. Continue reading →

27/1/07

Hey there and Mma ache to all you funky monkeys and smelly pant elephants

Well, we are currently at The Mole Hotel in Mole National Park which a REALLY cool elephant reserve in the north of Ghana, and… man… it would have to be one of the BEST kept secrets in these parts!

Basically the Mole Hotel/Resort that we are staying in, is built on a small cliff overlooking two huge waterholes where wild elephants hang out.

So we literally have spent the last 2 days sitting by the poolside with a beer in our hand watching elephants frolicking in the waterhole below… as well as having wart hog families just scrounging around our room, and monkeys just casually sitting on our porch.

And not only that… Ghana is such a dirt cheap country to travel in at the best of times, since it is easy to live on $15USD per day… But we couldn’t believe how cheap it was to come to this park which only costs 3 Euros entry, 17 Euros a night accomodation, and a 2 hour elephant walking safari only cost us 1.50 euros each compared to $100USD per person in East Africa!!!

…AND although there is not the variety of wildlife that you get in East Africa, you can get MUCH closer to the elephants here which is actually quite cool… um… UNTIL they charge at you!!!

But although watching elephants was what we came here for, we TOTALLY didn’t realise that it was like “Who Watches The Watchers”, and it was actually US who were being watched… by BABOONS!!!! Continue reading →

23/1/07

Aga po Seo, oumana seo, ounou seo and yahana seo to all you Dogon Bogons and flying pygmies

Well, we are currently in Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadoogoo), which is the capital of Burkina Faso and it would have to be the coolest named capital city that we have been to outside of Tegucigalpa in Honduras and Llubjlana in Slovenia.

But the ride here was one of the most god-awful trips that we have done, since we literally got jammed like sardines into a rusted minibus full of holes and with no suspension… And since it was a dirt track the whole way into the country, we ended up covered in red dust that was so thick that it even stained our friggin TEETH!!! And to make it even more painful the van could only go at 30km an hour, drawing out our misery.

But anyways, we have now left Mali which is actually REALLY sad since we had a FANTASTIC time here despite all the bad things that we had read about the place before we arrived.

And it’s a also bit sad, now that we are travelling on our own again since we met some really COOL people along the way including 2 London girls Gaby and Sofia, who we have been travelling with almost the whole time we were in Mali, and who really made our trip a heap of fun.

But …man… On reflection, Mali DEFINITELY has the lion.s share of cultural attractions in West Africa and we were COMPLETELY surprised us at how amazingly diverse and interesting the different cultures are here in Mali… especially for a country that doesn’t get much tourism outside of the French… And that’s not even mentioning the internationally acclaimed blues and roots music scene, World Heritage level textiles, and elaborate jewelery and woodwork that you see all over the country. Continue reading →